Hello, i managed to make it out both days this weekend with all the beautiful weather we were having. My friend wanted to try out fishing for wild fish after his succesful fly fishing debut on a delayed harvest stream. We struck out kinda late and decided to go to the closest place we could go and try our luck. We made it into the water about 10:30 and i rigged up with a thunderhead stimulator with a smbsh as a dropper. He used a bwo with a tellico nymph as a dropper. Fly choice proved to be irrelevant very early, as within the first ten minutes we both had multiple strikes. I was trying my best to guide him about how to cast effectively without catching the always fiesty tree fish and he caught on pretty quick. Sure, he got into his fair share of trees for the day, but don't we all? Anyways, with his casting pretty good, we focused on getting a drag free drift and setting the hook. Those proved to be the tricky ones for him. I was showing him how to do it when i hooked up with my first fish of the day on only my 5th cast, a small brookie. Beginning to wonder if i'll ever catch another brown or rainbow! I then put him to the test in an area where the mending wasn't tricky and he got a fish rise to his bwo, but he was a little late on setting the hook. For the next few holes, i continued to show him how to read the water and how to get the proper drift and i caught fish out of all of them. They were rising to my thunderhead stimulator as well as taking the blackbird. Not wanting to ruin any more holes, i let him have first shot at all the holes for the rest of the day while trying to help him. He was beginning to get a better understanding of mending and the importance of getting a good drift, but he was still having problems setting the hook so i tried my hand with his set up. In the always comical fashion, i too, began missing strikes left and right. As i tried every hole after he got his shot first in my "this is how you do it" manner, i just simply repeated the actions of my buddy. I even looked at my flies to make sure they still had hooks on them!

We continued to work our way upstream and came to a very promising looking hole. He casted up into the white water and let his bwo float down into the calmer section when a fish leaped out of the water for it, he set teh hook and the fight was on! He landed his very first wild fish, a decent sized brook trout! He was pretty pumped up and so was i as i thought this may have broken the barrier for him. That wasn't the case however, as we fished for about an hour more only with a little more frustration on his part for missing strikes. Not only that, but it probably added to the frustration when i would fish the hole behind him and catch a fish! Maybe i shouldn't have done that.......

All in all, it was a good day and i think he learned alot and got his taste of how different wild trout are than stocked trout. He wants to go back so i think i may have another fishing partner. He ended up with one trout, lots of misses, and numerous tree fish. I ended up with 11, lots of misses, and (surprise!) numerous tree fish as well. Good day out on the water, almost a little too warm, though.

Craig

The stream
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/mtnman2888/NewberryCreek3-25-07002.jpg

His first wild fish!
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/mtnman2888/NewberryCreek3-25-07003.jpg

One of my little beauties
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m229/mtnman2888/NewberryCreek3-25-07004.jpg